


Spinning Forward (The 'I'm quite sure I'll be here before' Remix)

by megyal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:30:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The movement of an Obliviate through the human mind is such a destructive wave. The spin of a Time-Turner reverses the tide.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spinning Forward (The 'I'm quite sure I'll be here before' Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://hd-remix.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hd-remix.livejournal.com/)**hd_remix**.

_What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know._ _~Saint Augustine._

The movement of an _Obliviate_ through the human mind is such a destructive wave: flowing through the walls of memory, digging through the cracks with clawed fingers, until brick and mortar succumb.

The spin of a Time-Turner reverses the tide, and carefully builds back the broken walls.

  
But the mind, that glorious biological machine capable of doing so much, _remembering_ so much...it may yet discern those nebulous scars left behind, created in another _when_ which has been erased and re-written.

The mind can do that much. The world slows, and shifts on its axis but the mind may yet remember what might have been.

\--

Harry stood in front of Percy, staring at him with a disbelief that was tinged with sadness, incredulity and not a little empathy. Percy's blue eyes, so much like Ron's and yet so different, stared back at him; he had an air of exaggerated patience, as if he had explained his well-tested plans too many times, and was forced to go through it all over again before a panel of uneducated sceptics.

"You can't _do_ this, Percy," Harry said. The wind spun a few discarded biscuit wrappers across the divide between them. Percy stared them for a long, pensive moment, before he glanced away at the surrounding trees of the park and then turned back to look at Harry again. Percy's glasses slipped a little and he shoved them up the bridge of his nose, sighing.

"Someone has to," he said. "They must pay for what they've done." He looked tired, yet almost noble, even though there was a pleading sheen in his eyes. Percy's words seemed to echo in Harry's mind, as if he was hearing Percy's voice being piped from two different locations. Harry inhaled sharply and then frowned.

"My solution," Percy continued; _déjà vu_ hit Harry hard enough to be absolutely sure of the rest of Percy's sentence, just as he said it: "Is a relative kindness."

Percy said this calmly, raising his eyebrows and nodding in an encouraging fashion as if he could urge Harry over to his way of thinking merely by sounding reasonable. However, Harry felt something cold and heavy settling on the back of his neck. He clenched his hands into fists and dug his fingers against his palms. They had fought so hard, so very hard, and now he was going to have to take Percy in for what he'd done, and it would just break his family's collective heart. They'd lost so much already.

"You have _no right_!" he yelled, not too sure if he was talking about Percy's crimes against ex-Death Eaters, or what this would do to his family, or even what he was doing to _Harry_. Few people thought of that.

Percy's lip curled into a sneer and Harry knew that within the next two seconds he was going to get struck by the same spell which had wiped clean Narcissa Malfoy's memory. This certainty bloomed within his mind in vivid detail. He was so sure he had done this before.

The world seemed to shift on its axis; time slowed.

Harry's frantic heartbeat was suddenly a languorous thump in his temples and ears, long pauses between beats. He saw the individual strands of Percy's red hair shift as the wind curled it sluggishly about his head. The shoulder of Percy's ward-arm shifted under his robes, a precursor to lifting his wand and charming Harry's memory away.

He knew the spell would hit him hard, and he would fall to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. He would fall on his side, his cheek pressing against the dry grass on the ground; the individual blades would leave tiny scratches on his skin. Even as he fell, though, his memories would begin to fade, then disappear as he lay there on the ground, the wind singing cold songs above his senseless body, he would

_forget_

_important things important things he needs to remember he needs to remember Draco_

_i'll help you find her_  


 

  


"I'll help you find her," Harry had promised Draco Malfoy quietly. It felt insane making a promise to him of all people, but Harry was in the business of keeping his promises, no matter odd they seemed. They stood in the neat little sitting room of Andromeda's house, the fire crackling contentedly in the fireplace.

A promise like that was even more interesting, considering the fact that just a few seconds ago, Draco Malfoy had been trying to shake the life out of him.

Everything changed just that afternoon; transformations like that were supposed to be monumental moments, but it started out rather mildly.

Harry had gotten into the habit of sharing a mid-day meal with Narcissa Malfoy and Andromeda; he'd bring some wine, or pastry, or a new toy for Teddy. The remaining Black sisters had been happily surprised when Andromeda ushered Malfoy into the dining room a few minutes before this day's lunch. Apparently, this was an unexpected move on Malfoy's part, for Narcissa's smile was bright with delight and surprise. Harry had thought at the time that Malfoy could look as lovely as she did, if only he smiled.

However, Malfoy appeared as drawn as Harry felt: pulled in so many directions until he was stretched far too thin, with newly sharp edges. There seemed to be an air of desperation to him that appealed to Harry for some odd reason. Malfoy ate and curtly answered their polite questions, but those smouldering glances he kept throwing in Harry's direction gave him some kind of...hope; or maybe that's just what it felt like.

 _Hope_ , caused by Draco Malfoy. Harry rather thought he was going spare, but something about Malfoy seemed to shift that curtain of dark apathy which had settled around Harry. Malfoy kept shooting him darkly intent stares which had caused the hair on the back of Harry's neck to rise, and a pleasurable tight feeling in the base of his stomach.

Andromeda and Narcissa had left them alone after lunch, taking Teddy out into the garden. He and Malfoy watched them through the window of the sitting room.

"He's getting quite large," Malfoy said as Andromeda set Teddy on the leaf-strewn ground and the child promptly toddled off at top-speed to one of the nearby trees; he flung himself at the base of the trunk, and laughed like a tiny madman as he made a few unsuccessful attempts to scale the tree.

"He is," Harry answered, feeling one side of his mouth tilt up in affection for his exuberant godson. "Shall we, uh, sit down?"

"Yes, let's," Malfoy answered promptly, and sat in a chair near the fireplace with the same sort of intensity Harry remembered from their days at school, right before they shot through the air in search of the Snitch. Harry stared at him as he sank into the seat opposite, and their gazes held. Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Malfoy beat him to it.

"So," he said. "Japan's looking good for the Cup next year, don't you think?"

"What?" Harry blurted out, bowled. Malfoy scowled at him. "Oh, Quidditch, right. Well…er, yes, but Sato's gotten himself that wasting curse on his shoulder, so maybe they'll have a problem pulling that Tsunami move without him."

"Hidaka's a good replacement," Malfoy pointed out.

"Right," Harry agreed with a small smile. "And Watanabe's a brill Seeker."

"Yes, she is."

They both fell silent for a few minutes; possibly Malfoy was just as shocked as Harry at the fact that they _agreed_ on something.

Harry said, "What…well, what have you been up to?" and cringed internally at the interrogative tone of his voice.

"Plotting to take over the world," Malfoy answered and his lips curled into a mocking sneer as Harry tensed. " _Relax_ , Potter. Can't do much plotting without the right wand, can't I? I've been gardening," he went on before Harry could make any remark about the wand he still kept in his trunk, waiting for the time when the wand felt as if it wanted to go back.

"Gardening." Harry thought about that, and then nodded. "Did a fair bit of that myself, when I was younger. Can't see you mucking about in the dirt, though."

"Which is why you have house-elves," Malfoy said and eyed his fingernails for a few seconds. "We’ve been supplying Hogwarts with seedlings for the greenhouses. Not a lot, but--"

"I know." Harry said. "Nev told me, that's…nice."

Malfoy let out a sharply amused exhale, and deftly turned the conversation to other topics. The bright afternoon sunlight shifted down to the mellow tone of evening. Malfoy actually _listened_ when Harry spoke about the Weasley family, and when he carelessly threw in that detail of Ginny in Romania with Charlie and her fiancé, he waited for any caustic commentary on that. Malfoy's left eyebrow twitched, his nostrils flared slightly in a ghostly remnant of a sneer, but he said nothing.

The women came back in with a sleepy Teddy when Harry and Draco were in the middle of an in-depth discussion on the Ministry's amendments to an agriculture regulation (frankly, Harry was a little awed by Malfoy's easy familiarity with the Ministry's laws, especially since it concerned how one dealt with weeds on a plot of land in agricultural production; _weeds_ , of all things).

Narcissa smiled at her son, and pressed a quick kiss to the top of his head. "I'll see you at home, dear," she told him and flung Floo Powder into the fire.

Harry noticed how Malfoy jerked forward in his seat, one arm reaching out as if he wanted to pull her back; his fingertips actually grazed the edge of her sleeve. Narcissa looked at him curiously as the flames roared around her slender frame.

Malfoy gaped at the fireplace with wide eyes as she disappeared. When Andromeda left the room with a half-dozing Teddy, he got to his feet unsteadily, still staring at the fading green tinge in the flames.

Harry shrank back as Malfoy suddenly leapt at him, gripping his shoulders tightly. He tried to get his wand out of the holster strapped onto his thigh, but Malfoy didn't seem intent on hexing him; he was out to shake Harry to death. There was a desperate strength in the way his fingers dug into Harry's shoulders, hot even through the material of his Auror robes.

"What have you _done_ with her?" Malfoy had demanded, pressing Harry back into the chair. Confused, Harry wondered what had happened to the open conversation they'd been having for more than two hours.

Harry had a curious splitting in his knowledge, a knife carving through this reality. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought it was a vision being sent by Voldemort, and he grimaced at the memory of pain in his scar. It was confusingly intense and direct for a premonition: he imagined the title of a newspaper article in small, seemingly gloating letters: _**Ex-Death Eater's Wife Missing.**_ Below that, in an even smaller font (but no less spiteful): _No leads in case, according to Aurors._

Harry's own expression must have been muddled, for Malfoy stopped trying to dislodge his teeth from his head and slid away from him, looking lost. Malfoy's hands, still devoid of his wand and looking oddly big, hung at his sides listlessly. His gaze, eyes as large as that of a cornered animal, searched Harry's face; whatever he found there caused him to turn away.

"She didn't make it home," Malfoy muttered. Something bright fell from his hand, bouncing in the air near his leg: a Time-Turner on a fine golden chain

"I came back to see what happened to her," Malfoy said in a voice so quiet, Harry wouldn't have heard him if he hadn't gotten up to stand close, "but she’s gone." Harry bent, cupping the tiny device in the middle of his palm. He straightened, and without thinking of what he was doing, pressed it back into Malfoy's hand. Malfoy turned around, his lips lifting in mid-snarl, but it melted from his face as Harry looked at him.

Where Malfoy had gotten a Time-Turner from, Harry had no idea, but _something_ had happened to Narcissa Malfoy. The Auror portion of Harry (jaded and not a portion Harry particularly liked) wondered what else Malfoy had changed using the Time-Turner, but it was overridden by a deep conviction that Malfoy did this for his mother.

He had come back for his mother. "I'll help you find her," Harry promised, and even though Malfoy's lips tightened, the grey of his eyes seemed a bit brighter.

\--

As soon as Harry made his promise, he went to the door and called for Andromeda, asking her to contact Malfoy Manor when she came in. Puzzled, she handed the baby over to Harry and did what he asked. Harry kissed Teddy's soft cheek and fended off chubby hands intent on pulling off his glasses.

"Lucius," Andromeda said as she sat near the fire. "Is Cissa there?"

Harry looked at Malfoy beside him. Malfoy's gaze was directed at some distant spot over Andromeda's shoulder when Lucius said coldly, "No. She is not."

Andromeda had blinked and breathed out, "Oh."

"Why do you ask?" Lucius snapped. "What has happened to her?"

"She went through the Floo, to the Manor," Andromeda explained. "Are you sure she isn't there?"

"I assure you, if she had returned home, I would have been quite aware of it." There was a long silence before Lucius said, in a calmly conversational tone, "You traitorous bitch."

Andromeda recoiled as if he had struck her and Harry took a step forward. Malfoy put a hand on his arm, stopping him.

"She can take care of herself," he said, sounding vaguely amused and detached at the same time. Harry allowed himself to be held back, as Lucius inhaled and began to berate Andromeda relentlessly.

He couldn't help but step forward once more when Lucius accused, "I'm sure you've killed her. I'm _quite_ sure. You've either hired someone or--"

"You stupid man!" Andromeda hissed, slashing her wand through the air and looking so much like Bellatrix in that moment that Harry nearly drew his own. "You stupid, ignorant...!"

Ordinary words failed her and her lips moved through a spell, almost silent in her anger and dismay; streams of water erupted from the tip of her wand and crashed into the Floo's fire. Harry heard Lucius sputter indignantly before the flames died, and when Harry looked at Draco with raised eyebrows, Draco actually gave him a faint smile in return.

Teddy had pointed at the smoke wafting from the fireplace and chortled loudly. With a vaguely chagrined expression, Andromeda twisted her wand between her fingers and spelled the smoke away. She stood there for a long moment, her body held rigidly.

"Narcissa," she finally whispered. "What--?"

"Someone's taken her," Draco cut in quickly and glanced at Harry.

Harry nodded. "We'll find her, Andromeda."

They began the investigation into the disappearance immediately; Harry wasted no time in collecting some of the Floo Powder and taking it to the Aurors' offices for testing. Malfoy had insisted on accompanying him, weathering the stares he received with a stony mien.

Harry wrote up a report as they waited and handed it in to Kingsley in his office. Kingsley signed and stamped it, and then promptly handed it back.

"You're already on it, I'd say," Kingsley rumbled at him. "We can pull Ron from his leave, and we'll assign another team as well--"

"I trust Potter," Draco interrupted, and Kingsley tilted his head at the sharpness of his tone, and the unspoken declaration of _only Potter_. Harry stared at the side of his head.

Kingsley held Draco's gaze for a few moments, and then directed his attention to Harry. "Send a Patronus as soon as you've gotten something, then."

A flapping memo was waiting for Harry as they left the Head Auror's office, with the results of the test. The report gave no clue to any kind of tampering, and on Harry's suggestion they made their way to the Department of Magical Transportation.

"We need a Floo trace," Harry announced without preamble as they entered Hermione's office in the Floo Network Authority.

"Hello to you, too, Harry," Hermione replied calmly, seated at her massive, always suspiciously tidy desk. Harry wasn't too keen on her offices, because for some reason a large portrait of Severus Snape hung on the wall behind her desk. The portrait hardly deigned to speak with him, but it seemed to have regular and civil conversations with Hermione from time to time.

Harry recalled the last time he'd seen Snape alive, and he bit the inside of his lip when he glanced up at Snape's dark, hooded eyes. There was a small sound beside him and Harry turned his head slightly towards Draco, watching his face fade to an even more pallid shade than usual.

"Professor," Draco whispered and Snape nodded. Draco sent Harry a quick look out of the corner of his eyes. That look held too many emotions at once: sadness, a half-remembered dislike and an odd tinge of jealousy, as if Harry possessed something Draco wanted to have for himself.

"What?" Harry asked in the same hushed tone. Draco shook his head, his expression hardening into a finely made mask once more, and then jerked his chin towards Hermione. The imperious manner with which he did it should have annoyed Harry, but it didn't.

"Where do you need the trace from?" Hermione asked after a few awkward beats of silence. She eyed Malfoy for a moment, and then looked at Harry with raised eyebrows. When he nodded back in reassurance, she reached into the drawer of her desk and pulled out a massive scroll, letting it roll out on the desk. Harry helped to hold it down on one side so it wouldn't snap back to a tight furl. It appeared to be a spread of empty parchment until Hermione tapped it with her wand.

"Interesting," Harry said, smiling slightly as he watched a network of lines and dots bloom to life on the yellowed paper. "Looks familiar, doesn't it?" he teased, for it reminded him of the Marauder's Map.

"I don't know what you mean," Hermione muttered, her nose scrunched up.

Harry simply shrugged, watching the lines flare out in an increasingly complicated web. He sorted out that the dots were Floo-places and the lines were the connections between then. Apart from that, it seemed quite confusing, but Hermione exhaled sharply and tapped the paper again.

"What in the world are _those_?" She frowned and swirled her wand around; a few of the fainter lines glowed bright green. "I didn't authorize these. They're temporary connections...no, as a matter of fact, they're temporary re-routings. Let's see who authorized this one." She stroked the tip of her wand across one of the lines. A small box swirled into view, but there was nothing written in it, and Hermione shook her head in disbelief.

"The residences, Draco," Snape spoke up suddenly in that rich voice of his and Harry eyed him warily. One of Snape's dark eyebrows twitched at him as Draco bent to inspect the tags floating beside each dot. Harry bent close as well and blinked at the names outlined, names he saw in house-inspection reports nearly every month.

Harry said, "All of these houses are those of accused Death Eaters."

"Of course." Draco's tone was bitterly resigned. "But that is not helping me find her, Potter."

"Find who?" Hermione asked and Draco rounded on her.

"You don't need to know _who_ ," he snapped.

"Malfoy, that's not fair," Harry said, trying to keep his voice at a level pitch. The man's mother was missing, and he was just…lashing out. Granted, Draco was mostly a prat, anyway. "She's helping us, you know. Helping _you_."

Draco's mouth twisted and he looked down his nose at Hermione even as he told her: "My mother is missing. We suspect she's been kidnapped via the Floo system.

Hermione's hand flew to her mouth and she murmured, "Oh, I'm so sorry."

Draco stared at her and then gave Harry an unreadable stare out of the corner of his eye. At a sudden loss for words under the weight of Draco's heavy regard, Harry glanced down at his knuckles and noticed how his own fingers were tightly clenched around the edge of the scroll. With an effort, he relaxed his grip.

"We'll find her," Hermione said with a firm nod and looked down at the map again. "Look, these temporary routes end at these fire-pits, here. I don't know who authorized them, though. The magical records have been wiped, but I think I can do a paper-trace. Someone _must_ have signed something, somewhere."

"That'll be good if you can find who did this," Harry told her. "It's likely we'll need it for evidence in the case. I'll go to those fire-pits as well, see if there's a magical trace to pick up."

Hermione gave him a small nod. Approval and unrelenting support, that nod; Harry nodded back, relieved.

"Thank you, Granger," Draco said, his tone so brittle that it seemed as if the words cracked in the air as soon as they left his lips. He turned on his heel and stalked out of Hermione's office, leaving Harry to hurry after him. Draco jerked to a stop in front of the lifts, his fingers tapping quickly against the side of his robes.

"Let's take the stairs," Harry suggested and smiled a little at the wild glance Draco threw him. "Race you to the top?"

"If you wish," Draco muttered, but there was a mocking gleam dawning in his eyes. "We'll see if your Auror training has done you any good."

Harry took off, leading at a breakneck speed through winding corridors. He dashed around disgruntled knots of people. He had just sprinted past a cleaning-lady and her bucket, on the home-stretch to the steps, when Draco made an alarmed sound behind him. "Can't take losing, can you?" Harry sang out, spinning around to grin at him and trot backwards at the same time. Draco had stopped across the hall from the woman who'd been mopping the floor outside the men's loo.

"Mother," Draco croaked out, stepping towards her. She glanced at him askance, her hair a mousy shade now, the bedraggled strands almost shielding her face completely; however, Harry recognized the slope of her nose and the slash of her cheekbones. "Mother," Draco said again and she frowned at him as he held out a trembling hand. "Mother... Mum?"

Harry put a hand on his elbow, holding him back as Narcissa pulled away from him. "She’s been Obliviated," he whispered. "You’ll only confuse her further. Let me do this." Draco didn't move, but Harry could feel the tension in his arm. He tried to smile as he approached her, but she held her mop in front of herself defensively. Her small hands seemed overly red and calloused as they clutched the worn stick.

"Hello," Harry said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "Do you know who we are?" Her gaze flicked between both of them and then she drew herself up to her full height, narrowing her eyes at Harry.

"I haven't the faintest clue, no," she declared. "What do you want?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Draco open his mouth, and waved him silent. He then held his hand out to Narcissa.

"I'm Harry Potter," he said, very politely. "And you are?" Automatically, she took his hand in a delicate grip and opened her mouth to answer with her name. Her mouth remained open, but a puzzled, panicked expression flitted over her face.

"I...don't know." She stared at Draco over Harry's shoulder. "I--"

"Do you know who brought you here?" Harry asked, still as gently as he dared, releasing her hand as soon as she tugged it away.

She went back to gripping her mopstick. "No, I don't know." She tilted up her chin. "What has been done to me?"

"Someone's fiddled with your memories," Harry told her. "We can help you, but first we have to take you to a safe place." She shrank away from him.

"Mother, _please_ ," Draco whispered and something in his tone must have touched her, for she shuffled back out of the shadows and simply looked at them.

"I'll have to bring my mop," she informed them and Harry nodded sombrely, as if this happened to him every day. It took longer than Harry expected to have Narcissa transferred to St. Mungo's, asking Luna in the process to cast a special eye to her care. Draco requested the use of an owl to send to his father and, when it flew out of Harry's office, Draco stood there in the middle of the room, the heel of one hand pressed to his temple.

"What do we do now?" Draco’s voice was as raspy as if he'd spent too much time shouting. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll go out and hunt down the giant fuck who's done this to my mother."

"Agreed," Harry said, "but not tonight." He held up a staying hand when Draco turned to him, fire in his eyes. "Look, she's all right, isn't she? Mostly, yeah? And I'm sure that the person who did this doesn't know she's been found, not yet. They _won't_ know, as a matter of fact. So...I don't know; let's just go home, get some rest and meet up again tomorrow. I'll start at dawn with those fire-pits."

" _We'll_ start at dawn," Draco muttered. "I'll stay at Aunt Andromeda's tonight." He closed his eyes briefly when Harry raised his eyebrows. "I just can't go home to the Manor now, Potter. You wouldn't understand."

When Harry answered, "You're right, I don't understand, but I'd like to think I could," Draco's huff and small smile emboldened him further: "You could stay at my house. At Grimmauld Place."

"I forgot you were squatting there," Draco said, but his smile managed to spread itself a bit farther over his face.

"It's bigger than ‘Dromeda's. There might even be breakfast involved."

"How tempting," Draco drawled and then inclined his head, twirling a gallant hand. "Then...lead the way."

-

Harry was restless later on in bed, knowing that Draco Malfoy slept just down the hall from him. Surprisingly, Draco's sneer had not been evident as he took in the nearly bare room Harry showed him; he nodded slowly, exhaustion heavy on the lines of his shoulders. He closed the door with a soft, "Good night, Potter."

Harry managed about three hours of sleep, and then rose before the break of dawn to retrieve a long, narrow box out of his trunk. When he reached for the wand nestled within and cast a simple _Lumos_ , it felt reluctant, almost prickly; Harry smiled at it. He took it with him to the kitchen, keeping it beside the cooker as he prepared a quick breakfast. In front of the door to Draco's room, with the box tucked under his arm and a plate in the other, he took a deep breath and knocked.

Draco was sitting up in bed, legs pulled up and his fingers tugging with dreamy slowness at the duvet. His hair was flattened on one side of his head and Harry tried not to stare at his chest, at the small pink nipples crinkled in the cold morning air. Draco eyed the plate of eggs and toast with what seemed to be sleepy surprise, before accepting the plate and quickly plucking the heavy covers over his lap with one hand so he could set it down.

Harry didn't dare focus on Draco’s lap at all. He was having ideas about that lap, and they were both bad ideas and very good ideas, all at the same time. Harry kept his gaze averted in some vague direction and held out the box from underneath his arm, taking yet another hard breath. "This is yours," he said quickly and chanced a fast glance at Draco's face. Draco was staring at him, his hands frozen in the position of still smoothing the covers. "Your...your wand."

Harry opened the box, withdrew the polished hawthorne wand and gave it one last friendly stroke with his thumb, before he held it out to Draco. Draco took it. He stared at it for a long time, then looked up at Harry with eyes so wide and full of so _much_ that Harry thought he was going to swing his legs over the side of the bed, those long, slim bare legs, walk over to Harry and do _something_. He didn't, though, to Harry's deep disappointment. He simply cleared his throat and said, as carefully as if he was putting a sleeping babe to bed: "Thank you, Potter."  
\--

  
 _thank you potter_

All this and more, Harry would forget. It would be broken and washed away by the wave of the _Obliviate_ that Percy would throw at him.

Using Hermione's map, they had Apparated to the most recently used fire-pit in the forest, but no-one was close by. In the mist-filled distance, a few hikers moved through the trees.

"Let's split up," Harry suggested. Draco nodded, and drew his wand quickly to copy the map. He actually grinned at Harry as he handed over a sheaf of parchment, and Harry's answering smile felt shy on his face.

He'd literally stumbled over Percy Weasley, who was busy burying wands in a roughly dug hole. It was a shock to Harry, because he did it without magic.

"Harry," Percy said, standing calmly with dirt smeared over his normally pristine hands.

Now, Percy would wipe away Harry's knowledge of what he had found out, of what Percy was hiding.

The air itself was saturated with inevitability. Harry felt as if the whole world took a step sideways when someone bellowed, " _Protego_!"

The luminescent shield shimmered right in front of Harry's nose, just as Percy cast his own spell. The _Protego_ sang with power and triumph, even as Percy's curse bounced off it and slammed back into him. Percy was shoved back a few feet, the heels of his boots leaving short grooves in the earth before he collapsed into a formless heap.

Harry stared at Percy's dirty hands as Draco raced up to him.

"Potter!" Draco shouted. "Are you still with me?"

Harry turned around to look at him. Draco still held his wand, and for a brief moment Harry could see magic sparkling like a beacon around the tip of it, with that same gorgeous glow which had protected him. Draco's cheeks were red, strands of his pale hair lay flat against his sweaty brow and he was _scowling_. Harry lost the mind that Draco worked hard to protect, because he flung his arms around Draco and kissed him, kissed him _hard_. Harry's head was spinning as he pushed him against the nearest tree. Draco moaned, the sound a heady vibration against Harry's lips and he fumbled with the fastenings of Draco's trousers under his robes.

"Fuck, Potter," Draco moaned and he wasn't pushing Harry away, he was breathing hard and his hands were fluttering around Harry's body as if he wasn't sure where to touch first. Harry yanked Draco's trousers and pants halfway down his thighs, got to his knees and sucked Draco Malfoy's cock into his mouth, right there in the middle of the forest.

He'd _wanted_ this; he never knew how badly until he had the hot girth of Draco's prick in his mouth, his heady musk wafting into Harry's nostrils as he pulled back and licked a clumsy stripe up the crease of Draco's thigh. In the back of his mind, Harry hoped he was good enough to impress, but Draco seemed to like it enough. His fingers carded through Harry's hair in a distracted manner, curling in to tug every so often. Harry wriggled a hand into his own jeans and stroked his own cock, moaning around Draco's random jerks in his mouth.

Draco clenched a handful of his hair; Harry sucked hard and stiffened as he felt his own orgasm slam into him, Draco's come rushing past his stretched lips a few seconds later. Draco's hand loosened, and went back to that petting motion, now oddly comforting. Harry pressed his sweaty forehead against a trembling thigh for a moment, before tilting back his head and smiling up at Draco.

Draco let out a short huff, and reached down to pull him to his feet.

\--

 _i'm with you_

  
Draco would not come.

That now-familiar split settled eerily over Harry's entire being as he waited in the Portkey office. A disembodied voice announced that the Portkey to Berlin would activate in eight minutes. He was alone, gripping an old hairbrush in his left hand.

Draco would not come.

One half of him was convinced that all those weeks after Percy's arrest were for naught. All the dinners at the Malfoy Manor, which would have been deeply awkward if not for Narcissa's warm gratitude and Draco's long, heated stares over the dining table; all those kisses and touches, the whispered promises into the night, all the awkward and sometimes agitated conversations with Ron, were for _nothing_.

He shouldn't have asked Draco to accompany him to Stockholm, to spend two years with him. What had he been thinking? He would wait for eight minutes...for five...for two, and Draco would not come.

 _He will!_ The other half of him shouted desperately, but it was fading fast and Harry closed his eyes and swallowed hard against the lump which had formed in his throat. Behind the darkness of his lids, he clearly saw himself opening a folded newspaper as he stood in the middle of a cold, sparely furnished apartment. He saw the paper fall from _that_ Harry's hands and managed to make out the small print in one corner of the front page as it fluttered to the floor: _**Malfoy-Greengrass Marriage Imminent.**_

He'd need to get some therapy, if he were to continue seeing newspaper headlines in his head. He couldn't understand why he remembered another name: _Astoria_ , and why the name jabbed fiercely at the middle of his chest.

The world slowed, and tilted a degree too far.

Draco murmured, "Harry."

Harry opened his eyes, and stared at Draco, who regarded him with a closed-off expression. Harry felt a smile break over his face, even though his eyes still felt huge and rounded with shock. Draco's shuttered countenance opened up completely, as bright as morning. He folded his arms around Harry and then pressed their lips together. The Portkey pulled them miles away; Harry's glasses nearly fell from his face.

They were still kissing and then laughing together as they spun into the cold of the Bromma Portkey office, which was really just a protected clearing outside the Muggle airport. Draco's trunk tumbled into the snow, and Harry tried to get his hands inside his heavy robes, to find some skin to touch. In front of the disapproving official, safely ensconced in a tiny yellow booth to one side of the Portkey point, Draco pushed Harry's glasses up into place and kissed him again.

So many questions fell through Harry's mind, but the only one he could latch onto as he hugged Draco tight was, "I hope you don't miss home," which wasn't really a question at all.

Harry couldn't see his expression when Draco muttered, "I'm with you," for he had managed to bury his nose into the folds of Harry's lapels. "Wherever it is, we _are_ home."

Around them, time spun on.

 _fin_

  


**Author's Note:**

> I got [](http://acromantular.livejournal.com/profile)[**acromantular**](http://acromantular.livejournal.com/) to remix a fic of theirs, and chose this one: [Turning Back](http://acromantular.livejournal.com/28209.html). I really wanted to explore Harry's viewpoint and tried to combine the aspects of the Time Turner and the Obliviate into a very strong sense of déjà vu, almost a premonition of the past, of what might have been. I had wanted to go further and have a fic with separate threads of time, but I didn't get to that point.
> 
> The betas on this were [](http://winnett.livejournal.com/profile)[**winnett**](http://winnett.livejournal.com/) and [](http://tigersilver.livejournal.com/profile)[**tigersilver**](http://tigersilver.livejournal.com/). A vampire fic of mine was remixed, and I really enjoyed it: [Careful Not to Lose Your Way (the Tainted Moonlight Remix)](http://community.livejournal.com/hd_remix/27073.html), by [](http://corvidae9.livejournal.com/profile)[**corvidae9**](http://corvidae9.livejournal.com/)


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